The festival concluded in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on January 29.

The Asia Pacific Arts Festival aims to foster harmony, peace and global friendship through diversified cultural exchanges and performing arts competitions. The festival has been held successfully for the past five years, with participants from the Asia Pacific region, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Viet Nam, Cambodia and Brunei, among others.

This year’s event saw the participation of nearly 200 contestants who competed in different forms - instrumental, vocal and dance - and different categories - solo, duet, trio & quartet, small and large groups.

According to Viet’s vocal lecturer, singer Nguyen Vu, it took Viet four months to practise the song. “We rarely took a day off in the last two months before the festival,” he told vnexpress.net.

Việt said the performance of You Raise Me Up demanded profound expressions and vocal techniques to deliver the subtle and truthful emotions conveyed through the song.

The 22-year-old singer is the sophomore of Vietnam National Academy of Music’s Vocal Faculty. He is planning to launch his first musical production in March now that he has received the golden prize. — VNS